Medea: Food for thought

2 thoughts on “Medea: Food for thought”

1. So after reading the two articles and the commentary letter I myself have come to the conclusion that the judgments received are unjust. The two articles show how differently and biased society views women and men when it comes to child murders.

   Nature has established this law/instinct that a mother must always protect her young but what about the father. Yes the mother bears the child but that child is just as much flesh and blood of its father as its mother. Is it fair that we judge women differently than men when it comes to nurturing? What if there is no mother rather a single father providing the nurturing? If Hogan was a single father would he still be seen as mentally unstable or as a murderer. Nature and society for the most part have shown us that the child is the mother’s to protect not the father’s. So when the father causes harm he is not to blame for if the mother had done her job the child would be fine but if the mother causes harm she is convicted of breaking the law of nature.

   Who are we to say what is right or wrong? Any action can be rationalized enough to be seen as right rather than what society deems wrong. Like in the story of Medea, if you interpret her actions from her point of view you see she is being a protective and proper mother to her children. Rather if you try to explain her actions from a different perspective you could see her as unjust, cruel, crazy and unfit.

   In the case now of the death of Nixmary Brown, the young child beaten and abused to death by her father, news reporters have since the beginning been focused on the mother and how she could allow this to happen to her child. They seem to kind of blow off the fact that she could have also been afraid of the man and people in abusive relationships are usually tortured into submission, she could be scared and unable to understand how to prevent him from abusing Nixmary or her. That could be all she knows and understands. The courts seem to look more harshly on her rather than the man who actually did the beating because she is the mother and should always protect.

2. Hi Monika,

   That’s interesting – they were talking about the case on NY1 this morning, and your perspective didn’t occur to me. The Joanne Hill case bothered me a lot, because this woman was CLEARLY mentally disturbed, and nobody seemed to recognize the fact. For some reason, it is less shocking when a man abandons his family – the contemporary example that springs to my mind is the man in Nebraska who just dumped nine kids at a hospital (ages going up to 18, I think) because of their new ‘safe haven’ law. I remember being really shocked when this happened, and the article on AOL simply said that he “couldn’t cope” – in my mind, that’s almost worse than killing your kids, as they have to try and put together their lives bearing such scars.

   As a new mum, I think about Medea a lot. There is a cultural assumption that a mother has the strongest responsibility for protection of her child, and I feel that – my husband is a great dad, but there’s still a part of me that feels as though she’s MINE. Which made me think about your comment yesterday, absolving Medea of responsibility. If (and that’s a big if), she genuinely believed that her children were in danger, I can understand the impulse to take care of their deaths herself, to ensure that they’re quick and painless, and that they’re with her when it happens. It’s a terrible terrible thing to even consider, but I do understand. That said I’m still not convinced that she didn’t have other options, and it’s hard to let her off the hook. Even when they’re dead, her main concern is to rub it in with Jason. One of the things I love most about this play is how intricate the psychology of it is. Now I think I’m just rambling, so I’m going to sign off. Nice, provocative comment!